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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Porn Panic 2012: Mark Kernes Of AVN Sheds New Light On How The LA "Condom Nazis" Now More Resemble "Keystone Kops" In Pushing Condom Mandate Law

Some new info has now been discovered on the now delayed process of the city of Los Angeles to enforce their new condom mandate law, which was supposed to be in full effect by now, but is now in limbo due to...well, I'll just let Mark Kernes from Adult Video News Online tell the story.

After all, they've only had about four months to figure out that the new ordinance is completely unworkable

LOS ANGELES—In a letter issued Wednesday, LA City
Administrative Officer (CAO) Miguel Santana has asked the City Council
to give his "Working Group on the Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry
Ordinance" an extra 90 days—on top of the 120 days they've already
had—to figure out how to implement and enforce the mandatory condom
ordinance which AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) first tried (at great
expense) to put on the June 5 city ballot, and then urged members of the
City Council to enact preemptively as city law.

The CAO had been scheduled to deliver its final report to the Council
on May 16, though at the Working Group meeting of May 11, it was
announced that the report was not ready, and that another meeting was to
be scheduled the following week. However, that meeting never took
place.

As Santana's letter to Mayor Antonia Villaraigosa and the
City Council notes, the Working Group has held three meetings, the first
of which was not attended by anyone from the adult industry due to the
failure of the City Administrative Officer's office to properly
advertise it. The second meeting lasted just over half an hour, one
third of which was devoted to comments from the attendees, and third
meeting (which likewise was not given proper notification) took just 20
minutes, half of which were devoted to speakers from the audience.

Of
course, it's likely that some of the CAO office's time outside the
meetings was devoted to figuring out how to make the ordinance work, but
however much that was, it apparently wasn't enough. Apparently, one of
the main problems to be solved, aside from the "complexities of this
issue," is figuring out who will perform the inspections—or as the
letter puts it, "the need to further address the implementation
matters"—that the ordinance requires of adult movie sets, and it was
clear at the second Working Group meeting that neither the Los Angeles
Police Department, Fire Department, Personnel Department, the LA County
Department of Public Health, CalOSHA nor the permit-issuing agency
FilmLA wanted the job, which led AHF's representative at the meeting,
Mark Roy McGrath, to suggest that the CAO might want to issue an RFP
(Request for Proposal) to the public in order to find some group both
willing and capable of performing the task... which critics of the law
have long suggested might be AIDS Healthcare itself.

In any case,
with no resolution to that problem on the horizon, Santana recommended
"That the Council, subject to the approval of the Mayor, authorize a 90
day extension for the Working Group to Report to Council on the City's
ability to implement and enforce the Safer Sex in The Adult Film
Industry Ordinance."

The most interesting point that Kernes makes is that not even the LAPD's Vice Department is so keen to enforcing this law...even though it was them whom launched the "raid" on Dan Leal's Immoral Productions the night before the third meeting, promptly citing him for a lack of a proper permit.

Actually, the most interesting point is not that, but the offer of AHF to have the CAO do a RFP to outsource enforcement of the law to another group -- namely, AHF or some sockpuppet group, I suppose. Remember that AHF had already agreed to foot the bill for all legal challenges to the law (and rest assured, there will be a plenty of legal challenges). Would they be so willing to invest more of their own money to allow for enforcement?

Or, would they rely solely on the money gained by requiring anyone with a camcorder and a commercial website to buy a permit before they could even shoot a camshow? (Not just major porn companies, Clones....ANYONE running an adult website out of their house who tapes themselves engaging in real sex would be liable to either buy a permit or face harsh fines or even jail.)

And, keep also in mind that California is pretty damn broke right about now, with budget cuts coming down the line that will more than force cutting at the local level as well.

Bottom line is this: would AHF be willing to put its money where Mike Weinstein's big foot is lodged and risk their other enterprises in order to fund their own personal Condom Police Unit? Or...will Weinstein simply double up his thrift stores with more bareback gay porn to sell to make up the difference, or squeeze more AIDS Walks funds...or even more shakedown lawsuits to get more cash??

Curioser and curiouser, sayeth Alice. And I ain't talking Sunny Lane's Alice, either. Stay tuned....the fun may just be starting.

UPDATE: Well, The Free Speech Coalition just tweeted this in response to a tweet I did about AHF's fund raising efforts:

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Why yes, this blog is dedicated to pro-porn activism! With the belief that pornography falls under the auspices free speech and expression, and is legitimate entertainment for consenting adults, if made for and by consenting adults. One, as a consenting adult, has the right to make and view pornography as they choose.